Jimmy Garoppolo is one of the most confounding players in the NFL. Sometimes Jimmy G flashes the kind of brilliance that makes him a top quarterback and sometimes he plays like he’s never seen a football in his life.
Even among the 49ers there seems to be some mixed signals coming out of them from time to time. After Thursday night’s game against the Titans, head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed in the postgame press conference that he didn’t blame Garoppolo for either of his two interceptions but then said that Garoppolo “should not have thrown” the ball that resulted in the second interception.
Now, it appears that San Francisco’s GM is getting in on the “does he or doesn’t he support his quarterback” game.
Since deleted, it was revealed that 49ers GM John Lynch liked a tweet sent by a 49ers fan that said “Leave Jimmy in Nashville.”
👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/zrXFMNPfKv
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) December 25, 2021
Lynch clarified the faux pas by tweeting that he “accidentally and unknowingly Liked a Tweet” while he was at Christmas Eve Mass with his family.
Apparently – while in Christmas Eve Mass w my Family – I accidentally and unknowingly Liked a Tweet. Never intended to and remain a huge believer in Jimmy. Merry Christmas to everyone.
— John Lynch (@JohnLynch49ers) December 25, 2021
There’s a part of me that actually wants to give Lynch the benefit of the doubt. If you’re scrolling Twitter, especially during Mass, you’re probably doing it covertly so people don’t notice you’re on your phone in church. And if you’re not careful, you could accidentally bump the heart symbol as you’re scrolling your timeline or your notifications and may not be aware. It’s something many of us have done, we just likely did it on tweets that weren’t as embarrassing for us as this was.
On the other hand, even if this was a harmless accident, I can’t totally believe Lynch given the double talk going on from the 49ers about Garoppolo.
The only thing we can really go off on in terms of actual support for Garoppolo is that the 49ers traded three first round picks to move up in the first round to take Trey Lance and Garoppolo has remained the starter without any hint so far of him being benched for Lance. If Shanahan and Lynch didn’t believe in Jimmy G, he probably wouldn’t be playing right now as the 49ers are trying to make the playoffs.
But even that has been a mixed signal because teams don’t just use first round picks on players for them to ride the bench. And teams definitely don’t trade away three first round picks to move up and draft someone with the third overall pick for them to ride the bench. For a team with dynamic pass catchers in Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, the 49ers are a team with the potential to win now and could’ve used those first rounders on starting caliber players in other positions if they actually believed Jimmy G was “the guy.”
So is this a complete accident or a subtle admission of publicly agreeing to disapproving the starting quarterback? I guess we’ll never know.
